Aaron Rodgers: College professor gave me an ‘F’, laughed at thought of NFL career

Green Bay Packers fans can thank one of Aaron Rodgers’ college professors at Cal for helping to provide them with arguably the best quarterback in the NFL. The job of a college professor is to educate and prepare their students for the future, not try to discourage them from fulfilling their lifelong goals. On his weekly radio appearance with ESPN Milwaukee on Tuesday (via SportsRapport.com), Rodgers told a story about a professor who did just that.

Rodgers, who reminded people that he was second-team all-academic while at UC Berkeley, said the professor ripped him apart for not citing a source properly. She gave him an “F” and a lecture about how athletes always expect everything to be handed to them.

“To get to the best part of the story, she’s looking at me, condescending, talking down to me,” Rodgers explained. “And she says, ‘What do you want to do with yourself?’

“I said, ‘I want to play in the NFL.’

“She laughed. She laughed at me. It was a condescending laugh and she said, ‘You’ll never make it. You’ll get hurt. You’ll need your education, and you’re not gonna make it through school here.’

“I said, ‘OK. I don’t agree with any of that.'”

Sounds like somebody took a guess and guessed wrong. Most people didn’t expect Rodgers to be as good as he is, but he was drafted in the first round for a reason. The teacher was likely trying to curb his expectations to make them more realistic like my college advisor who told me there are too many people who write about sports in the world, but Rodgers clearly used it to his advantage. Packers nation owes that woman a “thank you.” As Rodgers showed us in this postgame interview, he still enjoys silencing the doubters.